The Cincinnati Bengals and the AFC North were selected by the National Football League as the division to be awarded an international player at the league meetings in March, and the club found out who that player was on Tuesday – former Minnesota Vikings draft pick Mortiz Böhringer.

The club had no real choice in which player was assigned to them, though they could request some players.

“It’s an effort to look for talent in a lot of different places, expand the outreach of the game, to generate interest in players from other countries and a chance to look at a guy with some physical skills and see if he can develop in our game,” Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin told The Enquirer in early April.

Böhringer was one of the top Day 3 draft stories in 2016 after he exploded onto the scene in the German Football League. The Vikings and former Bengals defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer drafted him as a tight end in the sixth round. He spent that year on the practice squad and was released at the start of last season.

The Bengals' front office did scout the pass catcher in 2016 and had a draft grade on him.

Böhringer, 24, is 6-feet, 4-inches, 227 pounds and ran the 40-yard dash in 4.43 seconds in his pre-draft workouts in 2016.

Since he was assigned to the Bengals after the draft, he does not count against the team's 90-man roster limit.